BLINK's 2017 Top 10
2017 has been a big year and BLINK have collaborated to bring you a list of their top 10 moments:
10. Brookfield House School Winter show
(Yes that is a broccoli and an inflatable unicorn!)
We wanted to encompass the likes and talents of the students (which are diverse!) from pictures of Broccoli to backwards bean bag throwing. It was hard choosing a theme, but we settled on a Winter TV shows including: I'm a celebrity, Christmas News Report, Adverts, The Queen's Speech, Winter weather report and Brookfield's got the X factor (an X factor and Britain's got talent mash up). Lots of parents came and the young people surpassed all expectations despite some anxieties about performing for an audience.
We were amazingly supported by students from Central School of Speech and Drama and Goldsmith's University.
9. Barbican Box
Coming in at number 9 is our wonderful Barbican Box experience. Vicki and Francis worked as Artist mentors to support mainstream Drama teachers in directing bold theatre pieces with their students. The process was based on a resource created by Toneelgroep Amsterdam and the pieces were performed at the Barbican Centre and Rich Mix.
8. Teaching at Universities
We taught at 3 universities this year: Central School of Speech and Drama, Goldsmith's University and Birmingham University. We love these sessions which enable us to pass on our inclusive practise and allow us to reflect.
7: WINK MURDER
Next is our WINK MURDER show, devised and performed by our adult Drama class as part of HF Arts Fest and shown to a sell-out audience at Lyric Hammersmith. Thanks to our funders Hammersmith United Charities and supporter / collaborators Bishop Creighton House, and last but not least our amazing volunteers Tara and Dee from Goldsmith's University and Central School of Speech and Drama.
6. New and old friends
2017 has seen us working with a record breaking amount of placement students and collaborators old and new. Thanks to everyone for making our year so great...you can see a list of all our amazing collaborators here
5. It's My Move Tour
We had a brilliant time on with Face Front Inclusive Theatre taking the It's My Move production around SEND schools and colleges. The production is about transition and included dance, performance poetry, music, theatre, a visual slideshow, Makaton and forum theatre...phew! It's easy to say we leant a lot and throughly enjoyed working with such a friendly and talented cast.
Photography: Andrew Bradford
4: FOUR CORNERS: Belfast
We had an INCREDIBLE time performing FOUR CORNERS in Belfast as part of Arts and Disability forum's 's Bounce! festival. We were hosted so warmly by the ADF team and were put up in the Europa hotel and treated like royalty! We ran a workshop with local integrated theatre group Kids in Control who had such beautiful connections and with each other despite their respective boundaries. We left inspired.
3: Rachel
Highlight no.3 celebrates when 4 became 5, and the dazzling Rachel Gildea joined BLINK as a Co-director. You can check out our '60 secs with Rachel' blog where the BLINK team grilled Rach with one question of their choice each to find out more about our newest member.
2. BLINK goes International
We're nearly there, our penultimate 2017 highlight is our first international date. We took FOUR CORNERS to Romania where we performed 4 times at 2 venues, lead 3 workshops with Roma and Romanian children and launched Delson's PULL UP album which is part of his Unlimited Commission. You can check out Delson's 1 min launch film below, and the blog documenting the making of his album here.
This was made possible with support from Unlimited, Shape Arts, Spirit of 2012 and Goldsmith's University
1. National tour
And finally in at no. 1 is our National tour where we travelled the length and breadth of the UK. We performed FOUR CORNERS a whopping 14 times at 7 venues and lead 12 audience workshops. We loved meeting so many like-minded people, and we created memories that we'll never forget.
The tour was funded by Arts Council England, and London based workshops by London Catalyst with support in kind from Goldsmith's University
